At CIVA's annual plenary conference in Bucharest over the November 5-6 weekend, attended by 22 delegates with 5 further proxy votes from other countries, I am pleased to confirm that approval was secured for a full house of international aerobatic championships in 2017 together with agreement on a wide range of airborne and ground based matters which continue to reinforce CIVA's position as the world's premier sport aerobatic authority.

The World Games (WG), including Unlimited Glider Aerobatic programmesWroclaw, Poland - 20th to 30th July 2017

This year the CIVA Bureau met in Bucharest on Thursday November 3rd in order to clear the whole of Friday 4th for a comprehensive Strategy meeting, during which a broad review was conducted to clarify how CIVA should plan and work forward over the next few years. During the ensuing plenary meeting a wide range of administrative and organisational matters were resolved, the 2017 championship officials, committee and working group members were nominated and selected, and Hungarian delegate Tamás Ábrányi joined the CIVA Bureau for a two-year term.

CIVA secretaries Hanna Räihä and Zuzana Danihelová are right now working to get the plenary minutes drafted for review, and these will be released for publication along with a Summary of Conclusions on the Documents page here as soon as possible. Both this and CIVA's own News website will shortly carry the key items required to underpin next year's events, together with an increasing range of general / aerobatic information and updates that are so important to keep everyone up-to-speed.

On behalf of the Bureau of CIVA we all look forward to meeting you at an event somewhere next year.

The CIVA plenary conference in Budapest over the October 24/25 weekend was well supported and took a full two days to complete. A report of the key actions and agreements by CIVA secretary Hanna Raiha is now available here on this website, and a full set of minutes for the meeting will follow in due course. The meeting was chaired by John Gaillard as president Lars Arvidsson was unable to be present, and concluded with the election of two new CIVA bureau officers and a new president Nick Buckenham from the UK.

Among the many changes to our operating regulations agreed during the two days were -

The new "Free Known" concept for programme-1 in all categories was approved, and thus the long established Known or "Q" programme-1 and the Free programme-2 are consigned to the history books. From now forward aerobatic pilots will design their own Free Known sequence from 5 Master figures plus 5 figuresothers that they must select and add themselves so that the whole 10-figure sequence conforms to the current Free regulations for their category in terms of versatility, non-repetition of catalogue numbers etc. The maximum K per sequence is a little higher than before however as all these new sequences have 10 figures in place of the previous 9. Also of course the 5 figure Master sets for each category were selected, and these will be published in Section-6 parts 1 and 2 in due course.

CIVA Rules Committee chairman Matthieu Roulet will create a new 'Requirements' document that will contain mandatory instructions for organisers that will be drawn from Section-6 and also the Guide to Contest Organisation. This will remove from them all those items that are primarily directed at championship organisers rather than competitors and contest officials, putting them conveniently in one place and making their application simpler to manage.

A good range of championship bids was discussed and approved, as far forward even as 2018 for the WGAC in the Czech republic. The so-far missing 2016 EAC will now be at Moravska Trebova (LKMK) in the Czech Republic from 20th to 28th August.

Forward notice of at least one 2016 FAI Special Aerobatic Event (FSAE) in South Africa was given, with a good prospect for one or even two more. If successful these will certainly help to improve the CIVA financial reserves and thus the commission's ability to fund other aspects of seasonal commitment to its official duties.

The winter is still keeping Northern Europe in a firm grip with snow and double digit minus degrees during the night and a few plus during the day, the spring is delayed but around the corner and with the spring we finally have the start of the aerobatic flying.

Saturday, the 23rd of June, marked the first day of the FAI Aerobatic Championships contest season with the opening of the 3rd FAI World YAK-52 Aerobatic Championships in Russia. The competition is being held at the Airfield Finam (Bolshoe Gryzlovo), Serpukhov region, Russia under the direction of Dmitry Samokhvalov. Chief Judge is Pavol Kavka of Slovakia, one of CIVA’s most experienced Chief Judges.

As we finish the 2011 contest season with our plenary meeting in Krakow, Poland in November, I can report to you another excellent year of FAI Aerobatic Championships.

A successful and safe calendar of aerobatic competitions was possible due to the hard and dedicated work of our corps of volunteers. This includes not only the local people who help organize and run our contests, but the cadre of volunteers who work for CIVA year after year. They can be found on the Jury, in the Scoring Office, on the Boards of Judges, on Technical Commissions, and throughout the contest site.

2011 was a special challenge for the CIVA aerobatic community, as four FAI Aerobatic Championships were held this year and this causes considerable strain on our rather small group of FAI International Officials. Fortunately two of those events were held at the same time and at the same contest site (the FAI World Glider Aerobatic Championships in Torun, Poland) making it easier for officials to participate and the events more financially viable for organizers.

As some competition categories shrink and others grow, combining events might be possible in other Championships as well.